NFH 02 Perfection (36 page)

"Well?" she asked, holding the blouses
up higher, but the two dogs lounging on Trevor's bed weren't
exactly helpful as they took turns licking Mr. Cuddles' face. "I
guess I'll go with the green one," she decided. They matched
Trevor's eyes, but she didn't say that out loud mostly because she
didn't know where Trevor was exactly and didn't want to take the
chance of coming off as even more pathetic.

It was bad enough that he knew she was
in love with him. He didn't need to know that she was also kind of
pathetic. Even though she had no plans of accepting his ludicrous
proposal, she fully planned on enjoying this night with
him.

Tonight he was hers and not just when
they were alone. Tonight she was going to know how it felt to have
every woman wish that they were her because she was with Trevor.
For once people weren't going to assume that she was his frumpy
little sister, because tonight she didn't have to hide her feelings
for him.

Even though she had absolutely no
doubt that he cared for her she really didn't think he loved her.
How could he? She wasn't beautiful or special in any way, besides
if he loved her he would have shown her long before he found out
that she was pregnant. It was kind of nice that he was willing to
lie to her to make her feel better and for tonight, just tonight,
she was going to pretend that he really did love her and enjoy her
one special night with him. When the kids asked about their
relationship she could honestly tell them after tonight that they'd
dated and it just hadn't worked out.

Tomorrow she would find a new place, a
smaller place that she'd be able to afford with her savings for the
few months that she wouldn't be able to work. She didn't have to
ask to know that Trevor would help her financially, at least where
the kids were concerned. It was more than her mother ever had so at
least she wouldn't ever have to worry that she wouldn't be able to
support her kids, because Trevor wasn't the kind of guy to skip
town just to get out of child support like her own father
had.

If worse came to worse she could
always ask Trevor to rent her one of his apartments. It wouldn't be
an ideal situation, especially once he got married, but if she had
no choice she'd suck it up for her kids. This really wasn't the way
she wanted to start a family, but none of that mattered now. What
was done was done.

Tonight was her one special night with
Trevor and she was going to enjoy it, she decided as she pulled on
her green blouse and fixed her hair. Everything was going to be
perfect.

A small knock at her door caught her
attention. She gave her hair another look and decided there just
wasn't any way to hide the small white bandage of her forehead.
Taking a deep breath she shoved away her disappointment that she
wasn't more of a girly girl and opened her bedroom door and forgot
how to breathe as she came face to face with a bouquet of baby pink
roses held by one of the best looking men she'd ever seen and
tonight he was all hers.

Tonight was going to be
perfect.

*********

"This is my date," Trevor bit out
tightly, gesturing towards her and looking more irritated than he
had a minute ago when the hot brunette came sauntering over to
their table and started flirting outrageously with him.

So much for her one perfect night, she
thought with a small sigh as she picked up her apple juice and took
a sip and looked around for their waitress. When she spotted her
across the room, Zoe gestured for the woman, deciding that she'd
waited long enough to place their order. Since they walked into
Joe's Tavern forty-five minutes ago they hadn't been able to say
more than two words to each other because of the constant flow of
either women coming over to flirt with him or guys from work coming
over to chat with him.

If they saw her sitting at the small
round table with Trevor they didn't show it. While most of them
smoothly stepped in front of Trevor to block her out, a few guys
had invited him to join them at their tables with the rest of the
guys and one woman had actually asked Zoe for her seat so she could
sit next to Trevor. When Trevor explained that he was with someone,
a.k.a. her, a few had looked a little stunned, one guy had laughed
like it a was a joke until he caught sight of Trevor's glare and
sadly more than a few women had told Trevor how sweet it was to see
a man spend time with his sister and left their numbers on the
table for him.

"Oh, really?" the woman asked, looking
her over and frowning down at her before she clearly dismissed her
and went back to flirting with Trevor.

Oh, well, she thought as she gave the
woman and Trevor her back and placed her order with the waitress.
Trevor tried to get the waitress' attention, but the bombshell next
to him wasn't giving up so easily so Zoe just went ahead and
ordered him the "All you can eat chicken wing" platter.

"I'm sorry. I can't serve him that
item," the waitress said, only somewhat surprising her since she
had a pretty good idea why.

"Why not?" she found herself asking
anyway out of curiosity to see if she was right and to have
something to do to kill some time since it appeared that Trevor was
busy trying to get the woman to leave.

"Because he's a Bradford," the woman
explained with a shrug.

"Okay, can you bring him two
cheeseburger platters then?" she asked, knowing if she didn't there
was a good chance that he'd steal her food and for the first time
in weeks she was ravenousness and wasn't about to share her
food.

"Sure, it will be about a half hour,"
the waitress said, taking their menus.

A half hour? She was starving. She was
pregnant with Bradford twins for god sake's and she was very much
afraid that for the next seven months she'd be in a state of
constant hunger as she tried uselessly to satisfy the Bradford
appetite.

She really wasn't sure how she was
going to survive this pregnancy or more importantly survive another
thirty minutes without food. That nausea pill had done wonders for
her body and she wanted, no needed, food or she was pretty sure she
would die.

"If I order an appetizer is there any
chance I can get it quickly? I'm two and a half months pregnant
with a Bradford," she said, not mentioning it was twins because the
thought was actually starting to scare her and she hadn't told
Trevor yet and didn't want him finding out this way. She just hoped
the woman understood because she was close to crying. Judging by
the slightly startled look on the woman's face she did.

The waitress shook her head. "No,
you're right. You probably won't be able to survive the wait," she
said, sending Trevor, who was still trying to get the woman to
leave, a glare. "I'll bring you out a bowl of clam chowder followed
by chicken fingers, they'll only take a few minutes to prepare.
Will that work?"

Zoe nodded solemnly. "You are my
hero."

"I'll put a rush on your food," the
waitress said before walking away.

"Bless you," Zoe said, fighting the
urge to kiss the woman. She was starving. She really couldn't
remember ever being this hungry before. Was this how it felt to be
a Bradford? she idly wondered as the woman who'd been flirting with
Trevor stormed off in a huff.

"I'm really sorry about that," Trevor
said, sighing as he rubbed the back of his neck, looking
frustrated.

"It's fine," she said, shrugging it
off.

There really wasn't anything he could
do about it. As much as she would have liked one perfect night with
him she wasn't too angry. It was probably for the best that they
didn't have a perfect night together so that she didn't have
something truly wonderful to reminisce over and have "what if?"
thoughts about later.

"No, it's not. This is our first
date," he said, reaching over and took her hand into his. She tried
to pull her hand away, but he wasn't having that. Holding on to her
hand tightly, but not enough to hurt, he shifted his chair closer
to her.

"Maybe we should just focus on having
a nice time out as friends instead of trying for the impossible,"
she said, trying to pull her hand away only to find herself tugged
forward and her mouth covered.

He brushed his lips over hers several
times before pulling back just far enough so that he could look
into her eyes as he spoke. "This is a date, Zoe. Don't try to
downplay what we've got going on just because you're afraid to see
where this is headed," he said softly.

"I'm not afraid?" she said,
immediately wishing she'd kept her big mouth shut. Seriously, when
was she going to lose that irritating habit of not being able to
lie? It would come in handy in moments like this or when she was
trying to get out of jury duty.

"If it makes you feel better," he
said, pausing to press a quick kiss against her lips that left her
wanting more, "I'm just as scared as you are, but you need to
remember one thing."

"What's that?" she whispered, feeling
nervous by the intensity of his gaze, the way he was looking at her
as if she made him happy....whole.

"I'm not going anywhere. We'll take
this one day at a time, but we are going to give this a chance,
Zoe."

"We are?" she asked breathlessly,
feeling herself soften as she leaned forward to meet his lips.
Maybe they could give this a try, she thought just as someone
yelled his name. Sighing heavily, they both leaned back and Trevor
gave the man, whom she'd like to point out looked stunned when he
spotted her, a quick wave.

"Zoe,-" Trevor started only to be cut
off by the waitress as she placed the largest bowl of clam chowder
Zoe had ever seen in front of her with an equally large plate of
chicken tenders.

"I took the liberty of doubling your
order," she said, giving Trevor a pointed look.

"Thank you," he murmured, gesturing
for Zoe to eat.

"Thank you. It looks really great,"
Zoe said just as the waitress started to walk away, barely able to
take her eyes away from the food as her stomach growled viciously,
startling the hell out of her.

Trevor simply chuckled as he handed
her a large spoon. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. From what I
heard, Haley out ate Jason while she was pregnant."

"Please tell me you're kidding me,"
she said, truly horrified at the prospect of eating as much as
Jason and that was only for one baby. Really, how much would she
need for twins?

"I'm afraid not," he said, gesturing
once again for her to eat.

She eyed him for a moment, giving her
food a chance to cool and trying to figure out a way to make sense
of everything. One thing she couldn't wrap her mind around was the
way he was taking everything. It was a little unnerving actually to
have Trevor suddenly declare that he wanted a future with her. She
knew it was because of the babies, but he didn't know that and one
day he would and she didn't want to be the one to pay when that day
came.

"Why aren't you freaking out about
this?" she asked, too curious to put it off for another moment. She
ate some of her soup and nearly moaned with pleasure. It was so
good and apparently her stomach agreed because it didn't threaten
to make her run the hundred yard dash across the restaurant to get
to the bathroom.

"I sort of did freak out when I found
out," he admitted sheepishly, gesturing for her to continue to eat
when she stopped to frown at him.

"What happened?" she asked, wishing
she'd been there when he found out. Actually, she wished he'd been
there to hold her hand when the doctor came back to tell her the
news or when they rolled in the sonogram and checked to see how far
along she was.

Almost three months along.

She'd been shocked when they told her
and hyperventilating when they mentioned twins. After they left the
room she lay in the semi-dark room and tried to wrap her mind
around everything. By the time they came to give her something for
the pain and announced that they were releasing her she was both
nervous and excited about the future, but she'd also been a little
frightened that Trevor wouldn't take it well and apparently he
hadn't.

"It was a bit of a shock," he
admitted. "When you didn't have your, um," he cleared his throat,
looking adorably embarrassed, "your um....," he trailed off,
looking at a loss for words.

"Friend?" she suggested, biting back a
smile at the relieved look on his face. When her period didn't show
up the first time she hadn't been all that nervous since her
periods had become extremely irregular with her diet and they were
using protection. It was also one of the things that scared her
enough to get off the insane diet she was on because she was afraid
of the damage it was causing her body, but now she knew she wasn't
giving her babies enough food and she felt like crying.

"Yes, I thought you were on birth
control," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "I really was an
idiot to assume anything. I should have asked, but I was so damn
excited to be with you that I have to admit that I really didn't
use my head a lot," he said softly, reaching out to take her free
hand. "I'm sorry that I messed this up, Zoe, but you need to know
that I will never-"